In 2004, American punk rock band Green Day rocked the world with their album “American Idiot.” Its titular track's opening lyrics have remained relevant and are often lauded for their longevity today. The contents of the song itself are generally irrelevant to college football discourse, nonetheless, its lesser-known line which follows is highly pertinent to what has been happening in the Colorado journalism space.
Many of the Buffs' faithful distrust the local media, just look at any local outlets’ replies on social media and you will see many echoing the same sentiment Billie Joe Armstrong belted just 20 years ago: “Don’t want a nation under the new media.”
Colorado football head coach Deion Sanders has always been a man who expresses nothing but infinite confidence and pride in himself. Whether it was back in his playing days when he became one of the greatest athletes ever to walk the Earth, or when he got into coaching to help his kids make it to each successive level, he has always been outspoken and unapologetic in his doctrine.
This also pertains to his addressing of the media. Many across the Colorado sports space will fondly remember Coach Prime’s first post-game press conference while representing the black and gold.
The Buffaloes had just upset the TCU Horned Frogs. As defending vice-champions, the Horned Frogs were predicted by many to blow out the Buffs. In fact, FOX Sports predicted a 52-11 victory for TCU.
Everyone remembers the story. Sanders and his squad were up against the world, and under 100-plus degree temperatures and pressure from everyone to back up the offseason talk, the Buffaloes triumphed. After the game, Sanders took every opportunity to remind the reporters that he had arrived.
“What’s up boss, do you believe now?” Prime asked ESPN’s Ed Werder.“I read through that bulljunk you wrote!”
The reporter counters, asking Deion what he thinks he wrote, and then finally asks if he can proceed with his question. Sanders, who is oozing with confidence from making his doubters eat their words, just wants one thing answered before he moves on.
“Do you believe?”
The college football world was set on fire. The majority opinion was typically in favor of Sanders and his “antics” given that every outlet in the country predicted his team to be one of the worst in the nation, with Vegas setting the win total over/under at 3.5.
After a 3-0 start that saw it ranked in the top 20, Colorado was flattened by the Oregon Ducks on the road. It trailed by as much as 35-0 at halftime and lost 42-6. Before the game, the Buffs proudly walked on the field talking smack to the opposition and confidently asserting themselves. But Oregon head coach Dan Lanning had different plans.
“The Cinderella story is over, man,” Lanning proclaimed to his team in his pregame locker room speech, appearing to hone in on that target that many believe Colorado put on their own backs.
Future Colorado resident and then-Oregon quarterback Bo Nix threw for almost 300 yards and three touchdowns in the Ducks' simple dominance of the Buffaloes.
Coach Sanders took his loss humbly, saying it was a “good old fashioned butt-kicking,” but also proudly declared that it was the worst the black and gold would be.
That sentiment was both true and untrue. Colorado only won one more game for the rest of the season and finished with a six-game losing streak, including a blown 33-0 halftime lead versus Stanford and a 56-14 blowout loss to Washington State which saw star QB Shedeur Sanders injured. Still, the Buffaloes were in contention in almost every single game with five of their eight total losses being one-score games that went down to the last few minutes, showing that the team was perhaps not as bad as the 4-8 record and six-game losing streak suggested.
Throughout the season, though, the continued confidence and honest, blunt answers that Sanders tended to give created many out-of-context moments that had social media putting Sanders and Colorado on blast.
“The big picture [is] you go get new linemen," Sanders said following the tough loss to UCLA where the Buffaloes only netted 25 rushing yards and yielded seven sacks. "That's the picture and I'm going to paint it perfectly."
The reactions on social media were mostly negative. Many took the message out of context and did not think that a public call out of his players was appropriate and the doctrine was criticized.
Later in the season, after the finale in which the Buffs lost to Utah 23-17, Sko Buffs Sports’ Harrison Simeon posed a question to Coach Prime about the offensive line. Framed positively and innocently, my colleague wanted to hear Coach’s thoughts on the progression of the highly criticized unit which Sanders had previously criticized.
“That’s a setup, isn’t it? You [are] trying to set me up right there,” Sanders said with a smile while members of the media chuckled along.
Throughout the season, Sanders appeared to lose his trust in the media and was not as willing to give material to reporters he did not know or trust. This is a prime example of Sanders remembering the fallout of previous media situations and taking it out on someone uninvolved and unrelated. The trend has gotten to a point where many media members feel disillusioned with the environment in the Prime era, feeling that they are walking on eggshells and are just one small slipup from being the next reporter in Sanders’ uncomfortable crosshairs.
Throughout the offseason, the Sanders family has continued to be one of the most scrutinized and criticized groups in the college football space. Whether it is the rekindling of safety Shilos Sanders’ bankruptcy saga, the fallout of Shedeur’s controversial attack of a former Buffalo in defense of his current team or Deion’s exchanges on X, it seems like every day a new story is coming up mostly on the attack against the family.
If you ask the media, many might say that it is their own fault. If you ask the local community, however, just as many might say it is the result of unfair treatment by the media.
The Buffaloes recently had their fall sports media day. During Coach Sanders’ press conference, he got into a snappy exchange with a columnist for The Denver Post, Sean Keeler.
Sko Buffs Sports’ Leo Rivera and Oliver Hayes sat next to the writer as Sanders continuously asked the writer one question: “Why?”
Sanders was referring to the writer’s work about Colorado, which it appears Sanders is not overly fond of.
The exchange lasted about 90 seconds and reactions were split across one clear line: the media and the community.
After sympathizing with the frustrations that Sanders may have with the media’s treatment of him, Daily Camera writer Pat Rooney expressed his confusion with how Sanders treats media members following the multiple odd exchanges he had with reporters that day.
“I still find it boggling that Sanders, a brash Hall of Famer who often says he doesn’t care what people say and think about him, actually takes very personally what people say and think about him,” Rooney wrote in a column.
Contrary to that sentiment, in response to an X clip of the back-and-forth with The Post writer, one user positively appraised the press conference as “one for the history books.”
Taking upon the unfortunate task of scouring social media posts and comments, I found the same trend continued across most of the internet. Expectedly, fans of opposing teams, and even a good amount of neutral observers, did not like the exchange or do not like Prime in general. However, the general trend between media members and Colorado fans was the media banding together in support of their colleagues and the fans expressing their pleasure with the treatment of media members.
As one 9News reporter stood up in defense of his fellow journalists, a supporter of Sanders and a member of the Buffaloes social media community fought back with an opinion that perfectly illustrates the divide. The consumers believe the media is out to get everyone.
“These reporters want to be able to write hit-pieces with zero facts and zero accountability,” the user wrote on X.
There is often criticism by fans of pieces that aren’t designed to be glowing praise of Colorado football. But to the fans’ credit, the recent Athlon Sports article was irresponsible. At best, the sources were less than trustworthy. I mean, come on. Grand Theft Auto? Guns flying around? Fights over gambling? Cormani McClain being bullied by Shilo Sanders and subsequently screaming multiple times that he would kill Shilo (which both subsequently denied)? This seriously was not picked up by anyone else prior? The coaching staff at CU releases more footage of their inner workings than most if not all teams in the country, and the first hint of firearms and fighting within the team comes from an article sourcing “anonymous players” telling stories that sound straight out of a movie. I can understand the “Us vs. the world” feeling that a piece like this could put into the Buffs' faithful.
But that was just one irresponsible instance of work. Despite this being an outlier, real journalists still operate with their backs against the wall at all times.
The distrust of the media appears to be embedded in the culture of America from all sides of every spectrum such as politics, social issues, sports and everything else in between. Some fans claim the media is too critical, too inflammatory and biased against Colorado while others claim that local outlets are too positive, unwilling to ask questions that don’t include glowing praise to allow easy answers and are biased in favor of Colorado.
To circle back to the most recent incident, Keeler is a “columnist.” His job is his opinion. His occupation is an inherently biased position, as the value in what he does is his opinion. It is not a purely fact-based craft, and this position exists across all forms of journalism whether it is sports-related or not.
Keeler does not have an obligation to be exclusively pro-Colorado nor does he have an obligation to like Sanders or Colorado football in general. His job is to write his opinion, whatever that may be, for The Denver Post. Although he does concede in an X post that he “had it coming” with Coach Sanders due to his often fiery and highly critical headlines and stories, that does not mean he deserves to be harassed by endless mobs of people on social media.
The world is better when journalists and the community they serve are in a symbiotic relationship. This is why freedom of the press is embedded in the foundation of the United States and why many around the world crave a free and unbiased press. If the community can trust the media, the media can do their job more effectively. If the media does their job more effectively, the community can trust them.
As a budding journalist, I want to be able to ask pertinent questions to my subjects, not worried that the work of others in my field may create a less-than-friendly environment.
However, I also want to work in a community where cooler heads prevail. It is no secret that many in the local space opt for inflammatory headlines in strong, harsh criticism of Sanders that can, at times, border on unnecessary (but not unethical). It is also no secret that there are publications that seem to refuse to criticize Sanders. But at the end of the day, it is all a matter of differing opinions.
In general, the media is unfairly villainized and attacked for simply doing their jobs. Many consumers appear to believe that every journalist gets into the industry solely to push an unfair and non-fact-based agenda against their favorite subject. Every day, I see reporters that I know personally getting slaughtered in the comments of their posts. Insults ranging from unfair criticism of their work to anti-Semitism and sexism are thrown at people that I know are good people with good intentions, some that I consider friends and mentors.
At the end of the day, teams need journalists, and journalists need the teams. Now, more than ever, personal brands are so important. But if nobody is talking about you, you have no brand. On the contrary, if there is no team to talk about, or if that team does not let you into their pressers, then you as a reporter have nothing to talk about. There should never be a sense of entitlement from a journalist, that they are entitled to this spot in the press conference or entitled to an answer from their subject. What we do is a privilege, not a right. But when we do our privilege properly, the subjects love working with us. And when our subjects love working with us, we can serve our consumers better and the community, at large, is happier.
There is a sense among some that journalism can not be public relations for the subject, which is completely true, but some seem to take it too far in the other direction and decide that any reporting on their subjects needs to be negative, critical or include some sparky snap in the lead to be real journalism.
I am in no position to tell any journalist how to do their jobs nor am I in a position to tell consumers how they are supposed to feel, and I am trying very hard to avoid coming off in that manner. I am simply putting my own observations out in the space, which is the same thing that many reporters who are constantly attacked on social media do. I do not think journalists should be berated or harassed for doing their jobs, as long as it is within the lines. But with that caveat, it becomes the responsibility of the journalists to stay within the lines, not drumming up the hottest headline they can come up with because they find the angry reactions humorous or because they have a grudge.
As I said previously, I just want to work in a community where cooler heads prevail. In case I haven’t been clear, the lack of that environment in the Colorado space is everyone’s fault. I too have fallen into disingenuous, bath-faith arguments online. But that does not mean it needs to be the status quo. We can always reflect, mature and grow as individuals toward the common goal of creating a much better community for everyone involved: players, coaches, reporters and fans.
TL;DR: Everyone just needs to chill out.
Cover photo by Roberto Patrick Gerra/Sko Buffs Sports
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